Crash! At The 2010 San Diego Comic Con Part 6 (More Costumes)

More SDCC costumes!Here is one of the many Predators walking around; a bunch of them in one big group.

I’m pretty sure these were homemade outfits. Pretty impressive.

I don’t know what this is, but it was getting lots of hugs….

Mr. Glass from Unbreakable.

Woody and Jessie at the Toy Story LEGOs display….

Here’s a pretty good Wolverine I got a pic of when the Sea of Predators parted for a brief instant.

Cow.

A very theatrical female Joker.

Here she is again with some other DC folks…

And one more…. I just noticed Supergirl there at the other end. It’s amazing what you miss at SDCC even when you’re staring right at it….

no idea who this guy was….

A cute Psylocke at the Marvel booth.

Tomb Raider again….

And another of her with some DC types…

Not sure who this was, but he doesn’t look gereric….

A gaggle of Trekkies… or Trekkers…

And another wider shot at the Star Wars: Clone Wars display…

And a trio shot of Trek…

The girl at the Heavy Metal Booth…

The guy in the red robe…

Here was an AWESOME Red Sonja that was across the room when I was in line to embarrass myself in front of Chris Claremont… hence the grainy photo…

Zombies!

More Anime types. They did this a lot…

… when they weren’t doing this…

Members of the Lantern Corps…

Another bad picture, This time it’s Captain America at the Marvel booth….

More poor cropping on my part….

These guys had a website… They gave me a card. They’re Steam Powered Giraffe, the musical pantomime Troupe.  Check them out at SteamPoweredGiraffe.com

Another member of the same troupe…

Another shot of Darth Vader….

Another Harley Quinn, a Joker in drag and the green Star Wars chick….

A whole group of folks that I don’t know who they’re dressed as. I think the guy in the middle was at the review area as a volunteer…

Black Canary and Green Arrow! I got several of these 2….

Super Mario! Got another of him later…

A (generic?) goth girl while I was still in that line for ‘V’….

…and an Iron Man from the same spot….

One of the Ghostbusters! There were a few of them walking around, possibly there with the car…

The Elvis Stormtrooper! And he had the voice, too.

One of the last pix I took on the Dealers floor.  This girl was fun. I have no idea who the character is, though.

Spider-Man among others standing in line at the Marvel booth….

One of the cutest girls at the entire convention. At first I thought she was carrying a Pikachu, instead of the Yellow bear theme….

This probably the best pic I got of the Afro-centric Captain America…. I tried and tried… My photography skills are on par with my art skills I guess….

Green Lantern was popular this year….

Another shot of the AMAZING Ariel from the Little Mermaid…. (EDIT: Isn’t this Christy Marie? The girl that in years past has gone as THE Slave Leia? I’m pretty sure it is…)

Snake Eyes, slightly blurry…

This guy’s happy…

Needless to say, two SDCC favorites…

Still have plenty more photos to post…. I’ll post some of the celebrity stuff next….

Crash! At The San Diego Comic Convention Part 5 (Comic Artists And Writers)

I didn’t get to see as many artists as I would have liked to. I guess I wasn’t as prepared as I needed to be (even forgot my schedule on Saturday). But I said when I went, if I meet Neal Adams I’d be happy….

Neal and son...

I did, so… I’m happy. I don’t know if he actually ever looked up. He was signing a lot. He did say “That’s interesting” to me while he signed this:

I’ll never sell this. It’s one of those childhood treasures I guess. Kind of hard to convey that to someone in the middle of the biggest comic convention in the world. Here’s a closer look at his autograph…

I also got some other signatures… I’ve already mentioned Chris Claremont… He signed a raggedy copy of Wolverine #1 for me and I was a jackass.

I couldn’t get any words out except gibberish when I met him. Then when I did, I overstepped my bounds and asked a couple of very rude John Byrne questions. I regret not getting back in line to apologize as much as I regretted saying that stuff. What can I say? I have a wooden noggin in most instances….

This was the first panel we sat through (a DC panel). Geoff Johns, Dan DiDio, and Jeannette Kahn were there,but for me it was really cool to see Jerry Robinson, Denny O’Neil and big bad Jim Lee.

Pretty amazing seeing someone like  Jerry Robinson, from the beginnings of DC, to Jim Lee, representing the current DC, sitting side by side.

I later saw Robinson at his artist’s alley table. He was sitting right next to Al Wiesner.

Maybe my favorite panel I sat through, though, was the Quick Draw panel.

The panel featured legendary MAD artist Sergio Aragones, William Stout, MC Mark Evanier and one of my childhood heroes Scott Shaw! (of CaptainCarrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew).

They were projecting each artist’s page onto their own big screen so that you could see each artist’s progress in drawing whatever Evanier threw at them. They also had some ‘special guests’ like Peter David and Len Wein.

Sergio deadpanned with Mark throughout and proved why he’s call the World’s fastest cartoonist. Not just for the speed at which he draws, but for how fast his mind works. There were several moments where the other cartoonists would still be doodling their first drawing and Evanier would be ordering Sergio to continue to draw another idea… and another…  sometimes 6 or 7 to their one.

I laughed for the entire hour.

You had to be there….

I think the best part was when they brought the 2 writers up.

Peter David played to the crowd and got a lot of laughs…. And yes, that little speck at the bottom of the photo is Peter David.

I also sat through a panel devoted to comics Icon Stan lee… The MC?

Todd McFarlane!  I guess they needed someone who could gab as much as Stan can. That hour whizzed by pretty quick. Todd and Stan were playing to the crowd and exchanging barbs throughout.

Then, I got some better (closer) photos of Stan when he was signing for folks in the Exhibitor’s Hall…

I met Jim Valentino. He was very cool and he reviewed my portfolio for me. He also signed my SDCC pass. I should’ve gotten a pic with him. But, I don’t think straight sometimes… I managed to calm down for the next guy (Erik Larsen). I have to say I was ecstatic about seeing 4 of the Image founders at this.

Erik reviewed my portfolio, also, and I bought a copy of the black and white reprints of the early Savage dragon issues (which I already have). But Erik was very cool and said a few things that would help me with my drawin’…. When he got up he was taller than I thought he was… but it was a thrill meeting him. Didn’t tell him this, but way back  in the late 90s when I first tried breaking into comics (at Dragon Con), I drew the Savage Dragon for my sample pages. My version of the Dragon wasn’t half as good as his, though.

There were a ton of artists that were there. As i said, I missed a lot of them that I wanted to see, but saw a few that I wasn’t expecting like Ernie Chan…

And writer Brian Michael Bendis, who I saw twice. Once at the Marvel booth (with a long line) and once in a hall where I wasn’t supposed to be. I should’ve jumped on that and asked  for an autograph, but he probably would’ve called security.

There was another writer (I think he’s a writer) named Sean Kelly (I believe that’s what he said) at the Marvel booth. When I was trying to find out where to drop off my Marvel portfolio submission package, he helped try to find out who I needed to talk to….

Okay, this girl tricked me (admittedly, not hard to do). I asked if I could get a picture of her and she said “Sure, if you buy a comic”… and I said “Okay”. Sounded reasonable. So I took the pic (a bad one /slightly blurred) and said asked how much… “Twenty bucks.” What? I told her she tricked me. She said ‘comic’, I heard her. Twenty bucks is the cost for a ‘trade’ not a singular comic book. I didn’t agree to that. I agreed to a comic book, which in my mind is in the price range of  $1.99 to 5 bucks…. But I didn’t want to argue. I just said ‘Okay’…  She was nice enough though, and she introduced me to the writer (Barry Wernick, I think) and artist, so I let it go…. But dirty trick.

The TRADE is called Bad Kids Go To Hell. I haven’t read it yet. That’ll have to wait for now. They have a website if you want to check it out yourself: www.badkidsgotohell.com

Maybe I’ll review it later or something. So far I’ve refrained from reviewing comics, so I’ll have to think about that.

The biggest moment (other than meeting Neal Adams) was when I met Adam Hughes…

I’ve been around him twice before, but this was the first time I actually shook his hand. I’m not sure who the girl in the Aquaman hoodie was, but she was fun to talk to, also. A friend of mine thought it was his wife.

Here’s Adam at work on the headshot of Catwoman for me…. I had an 11″ X 14″ pad of Bristol that I asked him to draw on, but told him he didn’t have to fill the page up. He was drawing smaller sketches for everyone and I’m not special. But he filled the page up, anyway.

Here’s the sketch. He was doing sketches for a 5 dollar donation to a dog charity that may or may not have been for his dogs (LOL). I think I gave him a little extra. Compare that to this, though:

I missed Rob at the Con.

My friend thought the guy in the middle of the above pic was Rob, but no…. I still wanted to get something signed by him even if I wouldn’t be able to get a sketch. And this isn’t aimed at Rob, because I don’t know if he would have charged for his signature, but there was a… I don’t know… an overwhelming feeling of greed at the con. I’m kind of shocked that I had to pay someone 5 bucks to sign something of theirs that I’ve owned for years and years. You’d think that initial purchase of their work would be enough to get them to sign something for you. But, nope. And don’t get me started on some of the celebrities that had hired goons ‘blocking’ people from taking their photo without paying a fee. One of the good guys, Chris Claremont, was actually signing for free; a remarkable act of nobility at the Con. And he’s the one I pissed off by sticking my Size 13 shoe in my vast gaping mouth. Go figure.

More pix to come….

Crash! At The San Diego Comic Con Part 4 (More Costumed Congoers)

I’ll start with the best live action Supergirl I’ve ever seen.

Some of you may say “Hey! What about Helen Slater, moron?!” Helen did make for a really  good Supergirl…. Why? She was blonde. And she was HOT.  My case for the girl from the SDCC: Blonde. Check. HOT while being cute as a button. Check. Supergirl hair style. Check. Big smile. Check. Sorry Helen. And the girl from the SDCC made her own costume (as far as I know).

Okay, after Supergirl, it’s all downhill from here, but there were still a lot of pretty good ones. Here’s one of several Robins that were there. This was the Toon version, if I’m not mistaken….

Here’s a well done outfit with working lights. I wish I would’ve taken some better photos. You can see the Zelda girl in the background (I think I posted her pic already).

Not sure who the girl with the female Cap was supposed to be… Zombie Wasp? Let me know if you know.

Not sure who this was… looked kind of like the Last Airbender, but not…

I kept seeing this Anime group (especially the guy with the yellow hair and orange pants… Isn’t that from Dragonball Z?).

Dr. Horrible and….?

Not sure who this guy was, either….

A cute Goth type….

A guy wearing one of the Saw deathtraps.

Here’s a mime who started juggling when the Japanese Anime/Manga dancing broke out once again. We saw you talking dude!

Another Anime guy walking through the lobby where all of the Anime types seemed to hang out.

I think this girl worked at one of the booths.

A nice headshot zombie in front of the Walking Dead booth. I got him in a few photos I think.

Another favorite. I’m not sure what Anime/manga character she was dressed as, but she had a great ‘tude going when she posed. She was taking photos, also and was nice enough to stop so I could get a pic of her. What a cutie… Here’s who we were both taking pix of right before I asked to get her pic:

There were 2 of these guys walking around together….

This girl was putting her boots on when I walked by, but I waited and got a photo. Not sure if it was a ‘generic’ costume or not.

Here was a very cool Scarecrow (from the Nolan films) trailed  by what looks to be a female Joker (I could be wrong, though). I took this while waiting in line for the ‘V’ panel (which we never made it into). What aggravates me is that I had tried to get a pic of this particular Silk Specter from Watchmen earlier and I didn’t even notice that she was walking with the Scarecrow. There were enough people walking back and forth that you would sometimes miss the costumed types until they were walking right by you.

More from the Marvel booth. The 4 year old Thor that was in this costume contest kicked this Thor’s butt. I couldn’t get a picture of him, though. He was too short and I couldn’t get the camera high enough.

And the Silver Surfer….

Not sure who this is, but he must be a Marvel character.

Here’s a terrible photo of a female Hawkeye. You have to understand I was taking these photos by holding the camera as high as I could over my head. A lot of them didn’t turn out as well as I would’ve liked….

loki and this guy was the biggest ham at the con. he was hilarious. Wish I had video.

A great shot of a zombie that was walking by (again, when I was in line for ‘V’)… I don’t think she wanted me taking her picture, but if you don’t want your picture taken at the SDCC, don’t dress like a zombie.

These 2 were great. They were headed to the same panel I was and stopped and posed for me. Love the hand pose by the girl in purple & black.

Both of these guys were impressive, especially the Morpheus. With the glasses he looked remarkably like a (younger) Laurence Fishburne.

A soldier just hanging out (from the ‘V’ line).

A girl in an anime costume getting change out of her bag at a pizza/sandwich vendor…

A familiar guy….

I would’ve liked to get more of this group, but I think this was one of the times I was running from one end of the convention center to the other.

I got a couple of these guys… One of the Green Lanterns and….?

Never could get a good shot of this guy. He was always turning away, walking away or saluting when I snapped the picture….

One of several Cylons that were lurking about.

I rudely asked this Joker if I could get a picture while he was trying to buy pretzels, but he was nice enought to pose for me. He wasn’t the image of the skinny  pointy nosed Joker from the comics, but he was very imposing as the Clown prince of Crime. I didn’t get a good shoot when he was smiling widely. He definitely could play a very sinister looking Joker, though. When he turned around I was like “Wow.” This was a Joker that could really scare the hell out of you. I passed him a couple of times and should have more photos.

Here’s a Riddler (with Richard Hatch of Battlestar Galactica fame in the background). I think this was at the end of my first day there (on Thursday).

Another Anime guy. This guy looked familiar for some reason….

A couple of steampunk style ladies…. In line for ‘V’ and they passed by (it was a loooong wait).

Another ‘V’ line pic…. I didn’t ‘lead’ the target properly and only got the dude in the pic… I don’t think she was dressed as anything anyway, though…. I’m thinking this was Ash (with S-Mart rifle)….

Snake eyes and friend (V-Line)….

Black Cat, Spider-Man and an X-Man…. Black Cat was a little tire I think after a long day.She was nice enough to get up for the pix.

Cyclops! Most people think Cyclops is a boring character, but he was always one of my favorites (especially in the Byrne years). This is the Jim Lee version. And since we’re on the Jim Lee X-Men….

Rogue! (And she kind of looks like Anna Pacquin. Rogue’s my favorite X-type.

I was hoping to see a Black Costume Rogue (the one with the green T-shirt, gloves and shoes), but no…. (I drew that BTW)…

It’s time for spontaneous Anime/Manga dancing!!!The White Queen and the Black Widow posed for me (yes, still in the ‘V’ line).

There were many coordinated couples like this zombie couple. They were funny, too.

Not sure who this was. Cool, though.

Leisure suit Vader and Fett with the Headshot Zombie…

When franchises collide: an authentic looking Boushh (or Leia in disguise) posing with a very believable Gandalf the Grey…

A Marvel Booth group shot: I see a Bucky, a Deadpool, a Captain America or 2, either a Valkyrie or a female Thor and maybe a female Loki (I think).

Here’s a slightly better pic of he group with Rogue, thunderbird and the astounding War Machine who I don’t think that they could ever actually get up onstage. There were a lot of people saying he looked better than what was in the Iron Man 2 movie. I thought so, too.

More Anime girls in the Ballroom lobby….

Whew! More photos in future posts…

Erik Larsen! (Looking At My Drawings at SDCC 2010)

My friend who went out to San Diego with me took this photo. I didn’t know that he did that while Erik looked at my portfolio (a page from the REJECTED Zuda thing… I got freaked out when I saw it! Erik was very cool (so was Jim Valentino, who I also met). More on this later…

Crash! At The San Diego Comic Con Part 3 (Displays)

There were tons of things to see at the 2010 SDCC… Here’s some of them…

The car from the Green Hornet was parked in front of the Convention Center.

The Walking Dead booth. I saw Kirkman at another booth, I believe.

Lots of Predators items… I also saw at least 5 Predator costumes, too. 4 or 5 of them walking around together.

Loved this giant Eerie/Creepy banner….

There was tons of cool stuff like these little guys.

The giant Voldemort statue…

The Ghostbusters car… And a not too bad live action movie version Aeon Flux, too…

I think this is Odin’s throne that was at the Marvel booth.

And the helmets. These were much more impressive in person than from those movie stills on the heads of the actors.

And more Thor….

The LEGOS Harry Potter display…

The insanely cool Tron bike….

The Image display where I met a couple of the Image founders….

The gargantuan Neytiri display…

With matching toys…

More LEGOS fun.

There were some incredibly detailed  (movie related) statues there like this one…

… and this one…
...and these….

The Bumblebee Mustang….

And the Bumblebee robot….

These toys were much cooler than the movie….

There was an abundance of Terminator skeletons and busts scattered about….

Have no idea what this was for, but it was pretty amazingly detailed….

Optimus…
It was really hard to take it all in…. TOO MUCH to see.
And right before getting on the shuttle to go back to the hotel, the General Lee drove by….

Of course I have plenty more pics of people in costumes…. Here’s a few more…

I’m assuming someone was actually in this R2D2. It was authentic to say the least. And I could be wrong but I think the girl kneeling in the background who was walking around as one of the best Supergirls you’ll ever see. I have pictures…

More costumed folks in my next post….

Crash! At The San Diego Comic Con Part 2 (Costumes)

I took quite a few pix of people in costume… The Cosplayers…. So without further adieu….

There’s some really bad pictures that I took, but there’s a decent one or two also….

There seemed to be an awful lot of siting in one lace for all of the Anime crowd. They just wanted thir picture taken, I think.

A Comic Convention without a Klingon just isn’t a comic convention. This was one of the friendlier Klingons you’ll ever meet. he didn’t even want to kill me or nothin’. At least he never said so. This was the first pic I took on Friday. That was the Day of the Migraine.

These kids were all sitting in the hall against a wall looking really tired and bored. I asked to take a pic of them and they were all nice enough to let me do that.  Love the girl on the right.

A pretty darn good Batman.

This girl was OUTSTANDING! She even helped pick the angle so that I wouldn’t be shooting into the light. I should’ve asked to take more. BTW, she’s Zelda, right? I’m not a big game person….

I took a picture of this guy (and the cute zombie victim) one day….

Then he showed up like this the next night…. Seemed like a pretty nice guy. I saw him with the same half-smile every where he went. I also saw him having his picture taken with someone’s 4 year old.

Hawkgirl (and Supergirl in the background), both attended the Stan Lee Panel. I think the Spartacus Panel also. She was very nice, too.

Not sure who she’s supposed to be… She wore the costume well, though.

Super-crowd

The Super Family…

I’m assuming manga….

I took a bunch of photos while waiting in line for the ‘V’ panel (never made it… ended up in ‘Fringe’). Here’s one of Darth and Boba in liesure suit attire. I got more of ‘em.

Harley Quinn and…? When these 2 walked in the big Ballroom, they got a lot of attention. I probably took more pix of them than any other costumed types. Why?  One, they were really hot. Two, they were completely into the characters. I’ll post more of them later….

Monster Toast… Or something….

Kick Ass! Have to say I read the collected series. Didn’t like it. Huge gaping holes of logic. Sold itself on ‘superheroes in the real world’ which they weren’t. Didn’t see the movie, either. This guy (and others) had believablely authentic costumes, though.

I assure you that there are 2 camouflaged soldiers in this picture. You might have to squint.

I think this is Blue Devil. Not the Jose Garcia-Lopez/Paris Cullins version, but, cool anyway….

Characters from Tim Burton movies… There was also a really great Ed Scissorhands that I didn’t get a shot of…

The Enchantress and Ragman. I tried and tried and tried to get a good pic of the Enchantress, but I kept cropping her out. One of my favorite villains from DC, too.

I think this is Poison Ivy, a Star Wars chick, a Harley Quinn, and possibly the Riddler.

Pirates….

That ‘Bat’ guy again… Also a pretty good one.

More leisure suit Vader and Fett.

Catwoman and Batgirl.  Darn the luck that I got such a terrible angle…. Just… darn it.

Marvel had a Costume Contest… This was Cloak & Dagger…

I guess the cotestant wasn’t satisfied with just playing Cloak, so after one of those staged style whispers he became:

The Old Spice Guy…. That’s not a Marvel character is it? Or does Disney make deodorant, also?

Big creepy stuffed animals with victims….

A hapless ‘Saw’ victim.

A repost of my favorite Poison Ivy….

Here’s another redhead. I think this is Ariel from the Little mermaid… Ummm…. I like her. I REALLY like her. Just wow….

Here’s another one of those zany spontaneous dance sessions that kept breaking out. Very cute girl leading the way….

Lucky dude posing between the female versions of the Flash and the Punisher. The Flash was really into the posing. I saw her running around a lot. I wanted to get some more pix of her, but she was just too fast.

Very cool group of DC types… Another good Catwoman. I like that one of the Guardians Of The Galaxy had his own Con Bag.

The front view of Catwoman and Batgirl with a female Two Face. Is that Harley Dent?

The Creeper! One of favorite characters as a kid. And a spiffy Supergirl.

Who is this supposed to be? Is he from Star Trek? Buck Rogers?

I have no idea who these two were, butI really liked the one on the right. Very cool look.

I’m not sure who these characters were, either. if anyone knows, please let me know.

Got this shot of the Invisble Girl while I was in line for pizza….

Joker, Harley and….? I like the hand pose….

I don’t who the character was supposed to be, but I love this girl. She was awesome. The guy behind her should;ve gone as the SkyPilot from the Road Warrior.

Another awful pic. I was having to hold the camera up over my head and the lighting wasn’t the best.

More Anime types….

Another blurry photo…

Tomb Raider! She was fairly busy with all of the photo requests. Note the DC types in the background….

Thunderbird at the Marvel booth….

Three more Anime (?) babes… They were pretty impressive in person.

Another angle….

Trekkies!

Meet the Shreks….

Black Cat, Spider-Man, an X-Type and another Joker. I’ve got more of them….

More spontaneous dancing….

One of several very impressive looking  Predator aliens that were lumbering around.

One of 2 bodacious Slave Leia’s that I got pix of. I know there were more of them out and about, though.

Here’s a good one. I think this girl’s name was Jessica. She was going as on of those cute Anime babes.

Captain America… Or is it Michael Cera? Hmmmm….

Lacigam dna… Emosewa si lrig siht! Annataz si siht eveileb I

And more leisure suit Fett and Vader just moving along….

More tomorrow….

Crash! At The San Diego Comic Con Part 1

Well, he 2010 San Diego Comic Con has come and gone but the experience should linger on for quite a while (for me anyway). I have to say I had a great time for the most part, with the only negatives occurring on Friday. Before I go any further I have to thank my friend who I’ll just call Mr. Assertive, without whom I would have never made it to the Con. A couple of months ago I was checking into it and found that it had sold out, so ‘that was that’ I thought.

I think at the beginning of July I followed a Twitter link to the SDCC site and found that there were hotel package deals that had become available. I asked a few people (including Mr. Assertive) if they wanted to go and they all turned me down. So again, ‘that was that’. I wasn’t going. I’ve never flown before and alone I would have been completely lost I think trying to get to all of the different locations. And it would just suck to go alone, right?

But a few days later  I got a call from Mr. Assertive to see if I was still inclined to go… Hell, yeah…. So, his wife was interested in taking their youngest out there to see the sites of San Diego and they were trying to make arrangements. We’d get 2 rooms (one for them and one for me), they’d see the town and I’d see my fellow nerds/go to portfolio reviews. A few days later I find out it’s just he and I. Oh. Okay… that’s fine. But I figured he’d be REALLY bored since he’s not into comics and not so into movies or TV. Maybe he’s into TV a little. In any case I thought he’d be bored. But tickets were bought and off we went.

So thanks again Mr. Assertive. I wouldn’t have made it out there without you and would’ve been completely lost, still in Pensacola’s airport… Thanks, and the 4X4 purchasing plan is in the works….

All I can say is 'wow'... New eyes....

Just to talk briefly about the flights again. I may have already pointed this out in my previous posts, but the first flight started off with Mr. Assertive recognizing Boston Rob from the Survivor series who flew to Houston on the same flight.

I don't think he went to the SDCC, though.

He acknowledged Mr. Assertive at the end of the flight which pleased him to no end. We met people along the way like Josh and Robin from Baltimore (who were very nice and interesting folks). Norm from San Diego kept me from having to watch TV on the 2nd flight (from Houston to San Diego). He even offered us a ride since he was getting picked up by his wife. We didn’t want to hold him up, though. Alex from Orlando was also a cool guy that was on the flight back to Houston. He and another couple of other con goers talked about our experiences with the various panels and viewings. Who I met on the way back (at the Houston airport), I’ll have to save for later. It was a doozy and even had an ironic tie to a past con that I attended.

So we get to San Diego… I think we arrived  around 2 PM (I could be wrong) and after a quick stop at the hotel we took the shuttle to the Convention Center (I want get into ‘The Gardener’, the bus driver… I think I already covered that in one of my other posts). Aaaaaannnnnddddd: SENSORY OVERLOAD.

There were plenty of things to see inside and outside of the Convention Center.

Actors.

Artists (like the Adams Family… Duh duh duh duhn…  Snap-snap… Duh Duh duh duhn… Snap-Snap). Writers.

People in Costume. Art.

Cool Props at Company displays.

Toys. Comics.

Zombies on cell phones.

HOWEVER… The main reason that I attended the 2010 SDCC was to get my work reviewed by ‘pros’ and to hopefully get work out of it. I kept referring to it as ‘hoping someone would throw me a bone’. And they did! Sort of…

The Sign Up Area for Portfolio Reviews...

I didn’t like how they did Portfolio Reviews, anyway, but I also only had about 2 hours of sleep and a growing migraine on Friday. I was fairly non-talkative to anyone for the most part because of that. I don’t think I was in the right state of being for ‘job interviews’. A lot of other artists didn’t like the setup this year, either,  though. There was even a petition going around to change the ‘new lottery method’. The reviews didn’t go on all day so, one had to be there at the right time. Several volunteers were handing out little paper slips (in a rainbow of colors) with a different company name printed on each (shown below). You had to write your name on each (or at least the ones you would like to talk to). I think I filled out 12.

Then you waited. And waited.

The hopefuls...

And waited… And then they had a lottery of names for each company.  Then you waited. And waited. And waited… Finally, the names of the lucky few were posted. I was on 4 of them, but for one company I was #43 out of 44. They only had the reviews for a limited amount of time , and after about 3 hours they were only on #20 for that particular company, so I really only made 3.

The girl above was another hopeful artist that got reviewed pretty early on by Nickelodeon. She was one of the only artists that I spoke to (maybe 4 or 5 others). I thought it was great that she was going to her reviews in costume. Where else can you do that? She said the costume wasn’t any character in particular BTW and that she put it together herself FYI.

Anyway… After the names were posted came the REAL waiting. On one company I was #3, so that was great (and the first person wasn’t there for some reason poor girl),  but for the others it was a pretty good wait.

Some poor bastard being told he doesn't measure up.

I watched  people getting their stuff reviewed. Some were short and some seemed like they would go on for 10-20 minutes. All of mine were really short. The first 2 especially.

I was right. Everyone else thinks my art is complete crap, too.

I was nervous because I inked my own work and didn’t really refine my portfolio to any particular discipline (pencilling, inking, coloring, lettering, etc). But they looked and the first couple went somewhat badly for me. Actually, I got a total of 7 reviews over the 3 days (including the drop-offs for Marvel and DC). 4 of  the 5 that I actually spoke to someone went something like “This isn’t something we can use” or “I don’t like how you colored this” or “Why did you draw sideways like this ” (darn you Zuda 4:3 aspect ratio!!!)… There were some positive comments, but for the most part I was told I’m not good enough for prime time. I did get one mostly  positive review. I think I said all of the right things, too, despite being half asleep with the jackhammer-like migraine. And I was given an email address and a request to send 5 more pages of a story from that company. So… AWESOME!!! It’s not a job, but there’s small white dot at the end of the tunnel. Or maybe there’s something in my eye….

One of the worst ‘review’ moments for me was at the MANDANTORY DC Comics Talent Search Orientation (with Mark Chiarello). I was late because Mr. Assertive was going to be nonfunctional until he found a Mythbusters bag for his daughter (who enjoys the show). I located one as soon as we got off the shuttle, but had to run half a football field to get to the 2 guys who had it. I think they were homeless people. I’m not kidding, but they agreed to the exchange. Then I left Mr. Assertive behind because he told me it was 10:30  (the time of the DC orientation), so I went sprinting away. I did stop to take this picture, though… Priorities.

Then I ran past 2 girls who literally had about 900 of those yellow Mythbusters bags. I later learned Mr. Assertive got several, as I knew he would. Luckily, San Diego is not nearly as humid as Pensacola or my shirt would have been drenched by the time I got to Room 4 (where I had to be). I think I got there 20 minutes late and when I sat down, Mr. A had timed the phone call perfectly. I managed to get it out of my pocket after it had stopped ringing. When  put it back in again, the  voicemail message alarm went off. That’s when everyone turned to see who the idiot was. And it didn’t stopped there. While I was TRYING to turn my phone off, he calls again, so I bounced over 2 rows of chairs and ran back out there, leaving all of my stuff and Mr. A’s camera. Once I got my phone off I went back in, but had already missed most of the presentation. That’s okay, though. I still got to meet Mark who was a very nice guy who stayed afterwards and answered more questions from several ‘aspiring artists’.

When I walked out of the room (on the wrong side), I ended up in one of those corridors where only the ‘pros’ are supposed to be. All of the ‘fans’ were entering from a hall over. I turned my phone back on and was calling Mr. Assertive when I noticed Brian Bendis walking towards me. I think he kind of gave me a ‘you’re not supposed to be back here’ glance before entering the room where he was about to appear. So that was cool. Always fun just to spot some of the pros just walking around. I wasn’t ready with camera in hand, though.

Ah. Pictures. I’ll start posting some of the many costumed denizens and panels and props and everything else at the SDCC in Part 2…

The San Diego Experience 2010 Day 2

It was another extremely long day. Started out real slow and I got a couple of kicks to the crotch early. The Portfolio Review thing was first and I was resoundingly blasted my first 2 tries. They did sort of a lottery to determine who talked to the different artists. Out of 9 or 10 that I wanted to talk to, I managed to only get selected for 4. One of them was 2nd to last out of 45…. I think it took that group about 3 hours to get to #20.  Anyway, the first 2 decided I wasn’t quite ready for work. The third company’s review went better.That may or may not lead to something good, but we’ll see. I never count any chickens.

All waiting to talk to the same 10 people.

I did have some decent moments. I enjoyed talking to an artist or 2. Ramon (Ramone? I’m too tired to get up and grab my wallet for his biz card) was cool and a decent portfolio that he was showing. He said he was having the same kind of morning that I was having, but was happy that I got something positive out of my third review. I hope he had the same kind of upswing. It’s tough being at a big convention like this one and to subject yourself to the kind of criticism that you’ll get. I understand it. They’re not trying to discourage you (I don’t think). Well, maybe a few are.

Wanted to meet Chris Claremont. Fan since I was a kid. Pissed him off. At least I think I did. Didn’t mean to. Aksed about him working with John Byrne and he appeared to not like that. The whole thing was awkward. I was extremely nervous. Much more so than the reviews even. Oh well. It’s not like it’s the first time that I stuck my foot in my wide gaping maw.

More pix. I didn’t have the greatest day with that either. The delay on the camera was killing me. Sometimes the camera worked, sometimes it didn’t. Here’s some of the ones that worked.

The BeeGirl! Loved the BeeGirl!

I missed an opportunity to try and talk to Erik Larsen. Here’s a pic, though.

Spontaneous Anime/Manga girls dance numbers! I’m not kidding. This was hilarious. A photographer dressed like the Mad Hatter summed this up perfectly:”WTF?”An awful pic of a really AWESOME Enchantress. I was trying to take pics carrying a portfolio, a backpack and abag and taking the pic with one hand….Not the way to do it….

Again, sorry Mr. Claremont…

Spartacus! Sat through this panel, because a friend wanted to see it. Of course, he sat through a chunk of the Review session… And the Stan Lee Panel hosted by the Toddler; Todd McFarlane (which wasjust unimagiably great stuff)…

This guy was great! He’s not really a Klingon… No, really. He was using the Review area to get the Klingon costume ‘completed’. Ihave a few more of him and the Cowboy behind him… I’ve got others that I’ll post when I have more time and am less tired. Tomorrow will be my last day at the Con before leaving for home on Sunday. Here’s one that was getting a lot of laughs. I caught them after one of their funnier poses. Damn camera flash delay….

San Diego Comic Con Photos 2010 Day 1 (Mine anyway)

I haves seen the world with new eyes…. And I’m not referring to Comic Con. My first plane trip to Houston… followed by my second trip to San Diego was just… well it’s difficult to put into words. The view was ridiculous. Again, I’ll have to think about it more. But it was awesome…

I met some nice people along the way…. Josh and Robin from Baltimore were nice at the Houston terminal. Robin was a pretty interesting girl… they were married I’m assuming, or at least ‘together’… Josh was helpful with his own experiences with Portfolio reviews. He was fairly encyclopedia-like with the comic knowledge (and the obscure stuff even). Anytime he was hung up on anything Robin filled in. I enjoyed the company in Houston.

When I boarded for the 2nd flight, I met Norm (from Arkansas) who was in San Diego to see family. He was an interesting dude, too. We talked a lot about planes in general… He was formerly in the navy (aircrew) and told me some cool stuff about avionics. Maybe I shouldn’t talk about that here. Anyway, that part was a 3 hour trip, but it flew by.

James Hooker of Cloud 9 Shuttle Service was a very cool guy. Really, the people of Houston and San Diego have been overly nice, so I figure that means my Review experience will have to be awful to balance things out.

A little crowded...

But the Comic Con Pix are what you’re here for aren’t you? My general rule was to take a pic of anyone with a costume, but I missed a few. I also generally asked first and was awfully awkward in doing so. I draw pictures dammit. I’m not a photographer.  The arrival to the Con was late afternoon so I missed a lot…But here’s some pix.

I went to a DC panel with some pretty big names. Levitz. Kahn. Didio. Johns. Denny O’Neil. Jerry Robinson. And of course big, bad Jim Lee.

The highlight for me was a brief Q&A where it was asked who was responsible for changing Wonder Woman which got a big smile from Jim Lee who looked like he was looking for someone to pick up a block for him.

Enjoyed the whole thing, though.

Maybe my favorite pic that I took. Cute girl that seemed to be having a really good time. You’d think that would be the case with everyone, but no. I saw LOTs of angry folks, especially when the day was winding down. Saw tears, Saw some frustration. Some lonely scifi stars… But a lot of fun, too.

Took this one while waiting for the shuttle back to the hotel. Gambit and Rogue . The girl looked a little annoyed, but if you don’t want people taking your picture, don’t show up at Nerdfest in full nerd attracting regalia.

This group seemed to be having a good time, too…

I made these kids get up. They were like a lot of Con goers finding a nice wall to rest ,next to after a long day.

This was a really cool display of Bumblebee of the Transformers. Had the car version, too.

Another favorite. Sorry I cropped your peace sign…. Great costumes.

Lots of cool displays…

A very cute Poison Ivy. One of my favorite Bat villains…

And  for my last post of the night, here’s a Yellw suit Wolverine. Whoever you are, dude, thanks for the pose. He saw me about to take the pic and immediately went into Wolverine claw mode. I guess I got the Saw puppet by default. I’ll post more later when I have a little more time. I’ll also post my Neal Adams signature. I’ll be happy for that even if I get BLASTED at the reviews…

Inception Review (4.5 of 5)

In a summer sea of deficient sequels, bad CGI franchises, TV show retreads and remakes, Christopher Nolan’s Inception is a beacon of hope for what movies can be if the effort is made. Nolan has always made movies with big ideas (even if the movie had a small budget like Following or Memento) and Inception is surely his most audacious undertaking yet.

Literally this is a movie about dreams and more specifically ideas.

There are elements of many other films… Dreamscape, The Matrix, Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind, Total Recall, Nightmare On Elm Street III: Dream Warriors, various heist films and even Citizen Kane. There were even some shots of a crumbling cityscape that reminded me of the old manga/ anime Akira. As a whole, though, Nolan has managed to create something that hasn’t come before.

The premise (or my attempt to explain it properly) revolves around psychological espionage where there has been a method developed that allows someone to enter the mind of  someone else to steal their ideas and secrets. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Cobb who for some reason is no longer able to return home to the US to see his family.

Early on in the film, a man named Saito (Ken Watanabe) offers to fix things for him to be able to return home if he does something for him that was thought not to have been possible before.

Instead of stealing secrets and ideas, he wants Cobb to implant an idea in someone’s head (Cillian Murphy’s to be exact).

He agrees to this and assembles his team to carry out the mission. And the rest you should just see for yourself. The movie has been described as labyritnhine (and it is) with it’s many twists and turns and dreams within dreams within dreams.

Some will find Ellen Page’s Ariadne character aptly named if they know their Greek mythology. There were many set design elements/details that added to the maze motif throughout.

The story at times was dizzying. The major drawback (for me) of the film was that usually in films exposition is considered a bad thing. Inception is one continuous dialogue of exposition.

Okay, there;s MORE than enough action, too...

The characters explain and explain and explain and explain. There are times when it almost seems like an episode of Lost where they’re just making it up as they go along.

In this case, I found in a lot of instances it was reinforcing a point (or plot point) that might’ve gone over the viewer’s head. It has been said by many that if you go to the restroom at any point in the film you will have a hard time catching up, so I feel for those with weak bladders. On the other hand, it may be purposeful to getting the viewer a little lost.

I don’t know if I would call this a flaw, but one thing that bothered me in the performances of the cast was Ken Watanabe’s Saito. I think he did a great job in the film, but when you combine Watanabe’s heavy accent, his ‘low talking’ to outright mumbling, and the fact that he was acting ‘wounded’ through a large segment of the film, it was very difficult to make out what he was saying. Someone mentioned subtitles could have been a solution, but that sounds sort of demeaning for some reason. I picked up most of what he was saying, but at times it was distracting.

My last minor little quibble is in the dreams everyone is still bound by he laws of reality for the most part. There are no flying people, monsters or anything else too much out of the ordinary. As far as dreams go these are pretty pedestrian. I read somewhere that Nolan has the same problem depicting the  fantastical elements of dreams as much as Hitchcock did.

But in this case, judging by the film’s final moments, the lack of too many fantastical elements in the dreamworld was deliberate. You’ll have to see for yourself. There are nice touches throughout. I’m sure details such as the Edith Piaf song that was played in the movie (at least twice) was deliberately placed.

Marion Cotillard played her in La Vie En Rose of course, so there was some reality being blurred in the filmmaking aspects as well.

4.5 of 5 whatevers. Inception is just an excellent film. It’s the best live action movie that I’ve seen all year, if not just the best film.